Appeals against refusal of remote evidence and discovery in fraud claim dismissed due to lack of basis and specificity

The Court of Appeal dismissed two appeals brought by a defendant against earlier decisions of the High Court. The first appeal concerned the refusal of an application seeking to have evidence from a defendant (who resided abroad) taken remotely or via a foreign court. The Court dismissed the appeal, concluding that the application before the High Court had not properly sought such an order, with insufficient medical and financial evidence offered to justify remote evidence, and affirmed the principle that witness testimony should be given in person unless exceptional and proven circumstances exist. The second appeal challenged the High Court’s refusal to order discovery of two sets of documents said to support the defendant’s case that significant payments received by the defendants were for legitimate consultancy work. The Court held that the document categories sought were overly vague, amounted to a fishing expedition, and were not shown to be relevant to the pleaded issues; as such, the order refusing further discovery was upheld. The Court was critical of the defendant’s inability to precisely formulate requests or support applications with adequate evidence.